ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS FROM SPAIN AND GIBRALTAR URGE THE TRIPARTITE FORUM FOR AN ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE BAY

The groups welcome the agreements arrived at by the Forum on environmental issues and call for concrete measures to be set in place to ensure implementation

The following organisations: AGADEN (Asociacion Gaditana de Defensa y Estudio de la Naturaleza), ESG (Environmental Safety Group), GONHS (Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society), Greenpeace and Verdemar-Ecologistas en Accion, have sent a letter to the Tripartite Forum, asking that the agreements made by the forum on environmental matters are translated into an executable plan of action that will specify the measures that will be taken and when these will come into effect.

The letter is addressed to Foreign Ministers Miguel Angel Moratinos and David Milliband, from Spain and the UK, as well as to the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Peter Caruana, and welcomes the positive declarations made on the environment. However the groups urge for action from the governments to ensure that the bay and citizens who live within it, are better protected from the excessive pollution levels in the area.

The environmental groups from both sides of the border would like to contribute further to this process. “Env groups have been campaigning and researching Bay environmental issues for many years now. We have protested and filed official complaints against the massive environmental degradation which has taken place in the Bay with, it is believed, lethal consequences for the environment and for public health, and we have repeatedly called for action from the authorities”, said Janet Howitt of the ESG. “The agreements reached by the Forum could bring about meaningful change in the many unsustainable activities in the Bay and we would like to form part of this change.”

In October 2008, environmental groups from Gibraltar and the Campo area submitted a dossier to the technical team meeting in Gibraltar to prepare for the ministerial meeting.

In June 2009, just ahead of the Tripartite Forum Meeting in Gibraltar, cross border environmental groups submitted a document called “Crisis ambiental de salud en la bahia de Algeciras/bahia de Gibraltar”. The paper contained various demands and solutions, of which several were included in the declaration made to the media by the forum on the 21st July to be among those tackled by them.